RED HORSE of the Balkans

Air Force engineers build operating facilities for US peacekeeping forces deploying to Bosnia.

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Without fanfare, the Air Force carried out a sizable ground operation
in the Balkans this win­ter, helping the Army set up a base of operations at
the American sec­tor headquarters in Tuzla, Bosnia-Hercegovina. The biggest
mission entailed rapid construction of huge tent cities at Tuzla airfield—once
a MiG fighter base—and other areas in order to house thousands of sol­diers
pouring in from staging areas in Hungary and Croatia.

These enormous compounds of wood-frame tents began springing
up in December at Tuzla airfield and two adjacent areas known as Tuzla East and
Tuzla West. Construction was the work of USAF's 823d Civil Engineering
Squadron, better known by the acronym RED HORSE (Rapid Engineer Deployable,
Heavy Opera­tional Repair Squadron, Engineer).

"It's different from what we're used to," reported
Col. Susanne M. Waylett, RED HORSE commander and the first woman to hold that
po­sition. "We've operated primarily in southwest Asia. We're very accus­tomed
to operating in the heat but not in the cold."

In the initial phase of NATO'sOperation Joint Endeavor, the brutal Balkan winter featured
not only breathtaking cold but also alternat­ing periods of rain, snow, and
ice. At times, an ocean of mud encased Tuzla, which has served as the logis­tic
hub for Task Force Eagle, the name used by the US-led multi­national force
comprising the US Army's 1st Armored Division and units made up of Turkish,
Scandina­vian, Baltic, and Russian troops.

Colonel Waylett, wearing a Kevlar helmet tightly cinched
under her chin and a standard-issue 9-mm Beretta pistol strapped around her
flak vest, took time out from the job one day to talk about the mission, while
out­side, on the grounds of Tent City One, members of RED HORSE sawed and
hammered away.

"Almost
Miraculous"

"I feel the troops have adapted very, very well,"
said the Colonel. "The productivity that we've dem­onstrated, considering the
weather conditions, is almost miraculous." One reason for this, Colonel
Waylett explained, was motivation to com­plete the job—something not felt to
the same degree by the ground troops stationed in the country. "They're
here for a year," she said of the soldiers. "When we're finished
build­ing their base camps, we go home. We know the faster we get finished, the
faster they get into good billets, and the faster we can go do other things for
other customers."

The 823d RED HORSE Squadron, whose home station is Hurlburt
Field, Fla., deployed about 250 troops to the Balkans. In their first two
months in the country, they built several tent cities at Tuzla airfield and
moved on to three other locations, where tents were going up as quickly as Air
Force transport aircraft could deliver con­struction materials. By February,
the Air Force had stationed about 550 troops in Bosnia, about half of them RED
HORSE members. The rest served as air traffic controllers, air­lift ground
personnel, communica­tions specialists, engineers, and the like.

Getting Tuzla's operating surfaces into shape proved easier
than many had expected. Capt. Anthony Davit, civil engineer with the 4100th Air
Base Group (Provisional), said the runways and taxiways were in good shape,
with only a few shallow pot­holes, which were easily repaired with cold-patch
asphalt. However, the lights presented a greater prob­lem. The Captain said
that they had to replace fixtures and bulbs for the runway lights and contract
with the Tuzla Electric Co. to repair exten­sive breaks in the taxiway lighting
cables.

By December 20, the day NATO officially took over the Balkan
peace­keeping operation, USAF had deposited at the Tuzla base seventy-three
airmen and all of the communica­tions gear needed for flight opera­tions.
Flight operations were being directed from an old tower whose windows were
crisscrossed with tape. The tower's prior occupants, Bosnian government forces,
believed the tape would protect controllers from a shell blast.

After the Army determined it need­ed help setting up tent
cities, RED HORSE was called in and went to work building the tents. Col. Neal
Patton, 4100th Air Base Group (Pro­visional) commander, is in charge of Air
Force operations at Tuzla and arrived with combat air controllers December 6
and began working with the departing United Nations troops to prepare for the
airlift.

It was common to see ground crews running out of tents by
the airstrip to greet the arriving cargo aircraft. Transports kept their
engines run­ning while unloading and took off as soon as their cargo was moved
off with the help of front loaders and other heavy cargo-handling equip­ment.

By February 1, USAF had landed more than 700 transport
aircraft into Tuzla, mostly C-130s, C-141s, and C- 17s.

Blanketing the Marshes

Pitching tents in Bosnia was not easy. CMSgt. Ricardo D.
Garcia, enlisted manager of the RED HORSE advance team, explained that before
the tent cities could be built on the marshy airfield areas the ground had to
be covered with special "geo­textile" fabric blankets, which were
then covered with eight to ten inches of gravel. The blankets separated the
gravel from the mud but allowed drainage. Otherwise, the gravel would have just
sunk into the mud, said Sergeant Garcia.

RED HORSE units were first es­tablished during the Vietnam
War. They built their first facilities at Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam. During
the Persian Gulf War, the 823d RED HORSE built an entire air base in Saudi
Arabia. The unit also built 2.4 miles of revetments in Mogadishu, Somalia, to protect
US aircraft dur­ing the humanitarian mission there. And many of the
"Horsemen" of the 823d finished military construction projects in
Haiti around the end of November, just in time to begin pre­paring for
deployment to Bosnia.

RED HORSE members are trained for heavy engineering
operations and boast of their ability to launch twelve-person teams to remote
or hostile locations within twelve hours of a "go" order. Teams with
ninety-four persons and 500 tons of equipment can be on the ground within forty-eight
hours. Within six days, the full squadron of nearly 300 men and women and 1,100
tons of equipment can be deployed.

Their missions include base-camp construction (as in Tuzla),
rapid run­way repair, airfield lighting and in­stallation, barrier and revetment
con­struction, well drilling, and concrete and asphalt construction.

The first RED HORSE personnel arrived in Tuzla on Christmas
Eve. "It was the first year I missed Christ­mas at home," said Capt.
George Forbes, of Warrenton, Va. "It pretty much sucked."

But overall, the Captain, a civil engineering graduate of
Virginia Tech, views the operation as "a good mission."

"We're helping thousands of troops in a short time, and
the pace doesn't give you any time to think about home."

Captain Forbes, who has spent as many as 280 days a year
traveling on construction projects, is part of a twelve-member RED HORSE sur­vey
team that conducted soil and water tests at Tuzla East and Tuzla West before
the tent cities were built.

Captain Forbes noted that the mili­tary operation will leave
the Bosnians with better roads, power-generation facilities, and water systems.
Like many of the squad members, the Cap­tain has a gung-ho attitude.
"That's reflected in our motto," he said." 'Can do. Will do.
Have done.'"

Another key project for the squad is the construction of six
facilities known as "Force Providers," the Army equivalent of the Air
Force's Harvest Eagle rest and recreation centers.

Army plans called for the deploy­ment, by mid-February, of
18,000 US troops to eastern Bosnia, spread out among about two dozen base camps
and the Tuzla complex. Sev­eral thousand more international troops also faced
deployment in the US sectors.

For security reasons, soldiers and airmen have been
forbidden to leave their bases. To improve morale in the many months of duty
ahead, the Army asked the 823d to set up Force Provider centers at three for­ward
operating bases in the Tuzla Valley.

In Good TEMPER

Two Force Provider centers will be set up at Tuzla East, two
more at Tuzla West, and the last two at Lukavac. Each location will pro­vide
between 1,650 and 2,200 sol­diers with morale, welfare, and rec­reation
centers, medical facilities, chapels, laundry centers, and an exchange store in
sixty-four-foot-­square metal-frame tents. The TEM­PER (Tent, Extendable
Modular Personnel) tents come with central heating ducts.

The 823d is building the Force Providers at Tuzla East and
West, while US Army engineers, along with the defense contracting firm Brown
& Root, headquartered in Houston, Tex., are building the facilities at
Lukavac.

The idea is to rotate soldiers through the facilities for
rest and recreation. These tents are heated better than those in the field, and
recreation facilities include basketball courts, large-screen televisions,
weight rooms, and dining rooms. Also on hand is what many troops long for: a
hot shower.

"If there is one thing that every­body in this
installation would like to have, it's a hot shower," said Col­onel
Waylett. "And we're trying really hard to get as much . . . avail­able as
we can."

RED HORSE's first priority is to get the soldiers under
cover in heated tents, and the next is to provide la­trine and bathing
facilities. RED HORSE is also helping at the dining facility, where, at
breakfast and din­ner, one encounters the unusual sight of Russian paratroopers
eating T-rations alongside American GIs.

Normally, RED HORSE is a self-sustaining outfit that
provides its own food, medical technicians, and main­tenance personnel. This
time, how­ever, the nearly 300 RED HORSE troops are eating with others at the
main base facility. "Because we're being supported out of the joint din­ing
facility, I've brought in my ser­vices personnel, and we're going to give them
a hand in feeding the masses," Colonel Waylett said.

The objective, she explained, is "supporting everybody
who's de­ployed in whatever way we can, whether it's doing standard base-camp
construction or providing [other types of] service that we have the capability
to provide."

No Privacy

Privacy for male and female troops in Bosnia often does not
exist. Asked about segregating the sexes, Colo­nel Waylett replied, "Nope.
Don't believe in it." She added, "Some units do, and some units are
uncom­fortable about integrating [men and women]. In RED HORSE, at least, no
matter where we deploy, we do not segregate. It's important because we operate
as a team."

In tents shared by men and women, changing clothes can be
awkward. Male troops usually wait for females to leave the tent before changing
clothes—but some don't.

SrA. Tony Carrender, of Destin, Fla., is a RED HORSE heating
tech­nician. He worries about millions of mines that have been planted or scat­tered
throughout Bosnia, including areas around the airfield where he is working.
"If it's not concrete, I don't walk on it," he said.

Casualties among the RED HORSE crew in the first six weeks
of the deployment were limited to work-related injuries. One airman acci­dentally
shot his foot with a pneu­matic nail gun and had to have surgery at an Army
medical facility before the Air Force evacuated him to the United States. A
second airman suf­fered a painful shoulder separation when a load of materials
shifted and pinned him to the inside of a metal shipping container.

The deployment is not a problem for SrA. Jason Arrowood, of
Mount Airy, Md. "I don't mind being here, as long as we're doing some
good," said the Airman, who orders materi­als for RED HORSE.

Colonel Waylett is proud of the RED HORSE crew. "They
have stepped forward and met every challenge that has been presented. This has
been far different from most of our deploy­ments to do base-camp support be­cause
normally we have a lot of lead time to do planning, material order­ing. This
has not been that way, and we still have to be able to produce the support that's
necessary."

Another major Air Force logistics hub is located at the
former Warsaw Pact MiG base in Taszar, Hungary, about 100 miles southwest of
Buda­pest. The base, which is being rented by the US military for $37,000 a
month, has a sign at the entrance to the airstrip that says it is the site of
the largest airlift in Europe since World War II.

The heavy aircraft operations­C-5s, C-17s, C-141s, andC-130s
that fly in and out around the clock—are under the command of the 615th Tanker
Airlift Control Element. For the Hungarians, who view their sup­port of Joint
Endeavor as a foot in the door to joining the NATO Alli­ance, the huge airlift
operation is impressive.

"In this airfield, we have never seen such a mass
quantity of tech­nology and equipment," said Hun­garian Air Force Col.
Zoltan Pinter, deputy commander of the active MiG­21 base at Taszar. "And
we never thought there was enough room for all that."

About fifty of the MiG-21s based in Hungary had to be moved
to an­other airfield during the deployment.

Several MiG-21s, covered in can­vas, were lined up nearby,
appar­ently used for spare parts. At the airfield one day, a MiG-29 arrived
overhead and began flying aerobatic maneuvers over the American op­eration,
prompting one Army lieu­tenant colonel to quip, "I guess they're trying to
tell us it's time to leave."

B

ill Gertz covers
national security affairs for the Washington Times. In January, he spent more
than three weeks with US forces in Bosnia. His most recent Air Force Magazine
article, "The Air Force and Missile Defense," appeared in the
February 1996 issue.